Holy Dark
3.
Of all things, Himura Kenshin was not a man who made much conversation, but perhaps that was what Saitou had come for: the wisdom in such silence. The tea was foul, too hot at first and too cold now and with too little time spent on the brewing of it, so it was weak and unimpressive. There was nothing to do but drink it, however, which Saitou did with stoic civility, as Himura did as well, though the Battousai had far better reasons to put up with it. That he lived with this girl, in this place, surrounded by the childishness of inexperience, seemed to suggest he had no pride left, or perhaps more than enough. In the way the Battousai now sat, with his back straight and his muscles taut even in supposed relaxation, Saitou knew it was the latter, though it seemed to be a microcosm of what Japan had become in the past fifteen years. Himura Battousai to Himura Kenshin; a killer with fangs so sharp and eyes so keen that they mirrored death to a man bent with the desire for proper atonement, shunning himself through the medium of his past.
Saitou's lips curled slightly, not a sneer, perhaps a moment of regret. They would have inevitably killed each other if they had not changed with the passing of time. Saitou was a lean thing now, not weary but jaded, and Himura had turned so long ago upon the path of the Rurouni that when he was not fighting only his features were reminiscent of who he once was. Their reunion would have meant both their deaths had it not been for the timely interruption, too matched, too much each other's opposites that need demanded they cancel themselves out. Like so much fire, and like so much ice, one might say, leaving only tepid water as a marker behind in a now tepid Japan.
Saitou knew and the Battousai knew that they would not fight again. In some ways the knowledge was a disappointment, to the wolf of Saitou's nature that refused such a truth, but they had all sheathed their swords in one way or another. Life and death were not decided by the blade or by the skill of the swordsman behind the blade, not any longer. This was, as women said with slight, demure smiles, a peaceful time. When Saitou moved in uniform through the busy streets he could feel the wonder that rippled on either side of him at his weaponry. Why, the people wondered, in a time of guns and of canons, of burgeoning technology, would a man choose a sword over a weapon far easier to master, far more advanced? If it were possible to kill all such people in the world and sit down afterwards to a nice bowl of soba, Saitou would have slit each and every one of their throats, to prove to them their own idiocy. Unfortunately, one could not murder every fool in the world, and still have time to breathe, much less indulge in a meal or two.
"Have you come only to visit, then?" It was Himura who first broke the silence, the Battousai's voice thick but less low than his age might have warranted. And it smiled, which Saitou recognized now but had yet to grow accustomed to. The past was a fierce beast, one that neither man could sever ties from; though Himura had tried far more overtly to do so, whereas Saitou Hajime had let the times change around him, had let his habits fit into, not change with, the times.
"Perhaps," Saitou replied. "I did not come for the tea. Whatever you see in your Kamiya girl, it is certainly not her prowess in the kitchen." It was an insult Himura would have heard before, the sort of 'good-nature' behind it not friendly, not companionable, but hardly meant for confrontation. Kenshin's eyes smiled just slightly at it, something he was by now accustomed to, and certainly in ruder terms than Saitou would ever dream of employing. If Okita Souji had managed in those long, bloody years to teach Mibu's Wolf anything at all, it was the necessity of a politeness policy, perhaps a stricter code than adhering to one's own stance in battle. It might have explained, certainly, some of Saitou Hajime's stubbornness.
"Sou de gozaru." It was the Battousai's particular, affected vocal mannerisms that made the hairs on the back of Saitou's neck stand on end the most, as if the redhead had taken courses in his long years of solitary travel: how to play the fool. Certainly, each time Himura adopted the Rurouni's method of dialogue, anyone who did not know the level to which such a fighter was abasing himself might assume he really was as much of a fool as perhaps he would have liked to be.
"And I believe it was not for the conversation you offer, Battousai-san." Saitou took another, tentative sip of the Kamiya girl's tea and then set his cup down, hoping that half was enough torture he could put his tongue through in order to seem just polite enough, as a guest in another's home. He was glad he had plans to be elsewhere for dinner, because it seemed that if Himura's woman could fail even in making a decent cup of tea for company then he did not ever want to see how terribly she could ruin something so far advanced as an entire meal. Again, Saitou's lips quirked up, much the same way it was a wolf bared just the faintest sight of its teeth when attempting to woo a flock of sheep with a mere look. Beneath that fall of red bangs, with unfathomable purple eyes, Himura Kenshin was watching Mibu's Wolf with a thoughtful, incalculable expression.
"What, then?" he asked. Something important to note, of course, was that the Battousai could still see through all pretensions; his senses had not dulled to such a point as to lose all efficiency. Neither had the blade of his sword been dulled, of course, though the strength of the fingers that wielded it was no longer a reliable truth.
"Perhaps I came to see again if you have not yet come to your senses. Things cannot return to normal because there was no state of normalcy to begin with. Not for you." Himura busied himself with not moving, except to bring the cup of tea to his lips, tilt it back just enough to drink. The muscles in his slim throat constricted just visibly as he swallowed. "I was in the area," Saitou further explained, into the quiet air, simply to enforce the dominance of his presence, "on business, and I thought I might see if you were still keeping fools around you in order to better learn their ways. It is not often one gets a chance to see the Battousai's home life."
"Aa. Sou." Himura's eyes had narrowed minimally during the time it took for Saitou to speak. Mibu's Wolf found himself amused at how easy it was to ruffle the Battousai's fur, as if, perhaps, some of Sagara Sanosuke had rubbed off onto him. Whether or not Himura Kenshin had intended for this to happen was another question entirely, one Saitou was not quite interested enough in to ponder more deeply.
"It makes you uncomfortable when I call you that," Saitou pointed out straightforwardly, as Himura finished his tea.
"Hai."
"But one day you will remember I can call you by no other name. I will not lie to appease your comfort in such a foolish charade." The Battousai smiled slightly, whether at Saitou's words or to himself, it was unclear. Still, the smaller man's motives were inscrutable as his eyes; yellow or purple, you could not break through that wall of glass he had built long ago to shield his every move from any opponent who thought they could read him properly.
"You say, Saitou-san, things cannot return to normal. Not even for you, de gozaru ka?" Their eyes met. There was a certain amount of guarded wariness to Saitou's expression, the tight lines of his cheekbones, the set tension in his jaw. Himura merely smiled. Well, there were more ways than one to hide what you were thinking, or feeling, relatively, Saitou noted with some amount of satisfaction. Perhaps Himura Kenshin had changed less than one might at first think. The name was different, but the basic principles were the same in the end.
"I have not seen my wife in over a year now, and I have not seen Okita since his death." Saitou's voice was purely statistical; there was not even the usual analytical crispness to its tone, for the things he spoke of now were purely factual, no emotional attachment any longer to what was past. "For wolves and Hitokiri still living in such an era, there is no normal."
"Aa. Sou de gozaru yo." Himura looked down at his empty cup of tea for a moment, and smiled again. "Did you come to wonder at my state or at your own, Saitou-san?" Saitou matched the smile evenly, for though they might never cross swords again in combat they were still on opposite sides of the chessboard, and check or checkmate might come hand and hand with unexpected moves.
"Both," Saitou replied squarely. "I do not lie to myself."
"I understand."
"Do you?" Saitou arched a thin, dark brow.
"Perhaps." Politely, Saitou bowed his head to that statement, wondering if that level of understanding still existed between them, or if Himura's fighting spirit had indeed rusted over these years, now so badly that it had become a point of no return. Future battles might tell assuming the world still had skill to offer, for the best skill was born only ever of necessity, and such 'peaceful' times did not produce warriors as war, unrest, oppression could. Saitou rolled his shoulders, almost shrugging, though it was for the most part to release the tension in his muscles, not to convey anything at all. All chance for real discussion had been lost. Together, they might have been strategists once, and fighting for the same purpose had pitted them together on a path towards a power that had taken both their skills, their minds, and their determination to defeat. But though they had been cut from the same cloth once they had been sewn into separate creatures. It was, in its own, simple way, a shame.
"It seems to make you happy, at least: this web of careful lies." It was time to put on his gloves; such was an action that would herald the end of his visit here. He pulled them on neatly, with precise movements of his fingers and wrists. "But tell me something, Battousai."
"Hai?" Himura looked up, head tilted to the side, as Saitou stood, movements half-brittle but ever graceful, Mibu's Wolf's internal rhythms dictating an elegance born of strength and refinement. Saitou's eyes narrowed and his smile turned into something unpleasantly near that of a gambler's when he at last pulled one of his trump cards, and not even his last one, at that. The Battousai could make what he would of what came next, though in its superfluity of hidden meanings there were plenty to haunt him for a long, long time to come.
"Can you truly sleep at night?"
~*~
They moved with precision and procedure, as they might have practiced once when they were younger, the same moves over and over again until they could stop moving as easily as they could start. The grace was, Okita said once on a cloudless day, folding his hands before him while they waited for lunch, "not in the beginning of a technique, but at the very end of it." Saitou had taken that to mean any number of things, but he had learned, oddly enough, to stop as if he were one with the earth, as if no matter the lunge, no matter the passion behind the lunge, he could always take root in the ground beneath his feet at the snap of a finger or the gasp of a breath, if the need arose to do so.
They moved with precision and procedure, as only two men so accustomed to one another could, folding clothing on either side of the tatami as each article was removed. It did not do, of course, to undress one another, for the process was clumsy and spoke of the passion neither of them could bring themselves to display, each for their own silent reasons. In the morning, they would be glad of how neat they had been the night before, and there was something about the waiting, backs to one another, that set fire to their patience. Here, they would place their swords aside; when at last they did that, they would truly feel how naked they were, and they would give way to the rawness of desire in order to compensate, to show they were not truly impotent without their weapons.
The light rustle of fabric as they undressed was reminiscent enough of the familiar patterns to seem comfortable and customary. In such feelings was a peace of mind one could not find elsewhere, a home apart from the blade.
Saitou smoothed along the folded edge of the topmost white garment, light enough so that the calluses on his palms would not catch the fabric. He heard, or felt, the other do the same, and then the shifting of the smaller body as it moved to rest back on its heels. Saitou did not smile with his lips but he never truly had, not since he was a very young boy, and it did not mean the flash in his eyes was to be ignored. Again, the body behind his own began to move and a small, warm hand, which should have been smooth but was just as callused as his own, rested against his shoulder. The other pressed to the small of his lower back, flesh defining the contours of flesh.
When Okita bowed his head at last, brushed the long black hair away from Saitou's neck and kissed it, Saitou eased himself back, as Okita had done, on his heels, and let the younger man do as he so pleased. They were two very different people, Okita Souji and Saitou Hajime, but Okita liked to touch and Saitou took pleasure in each caress, and both had grown accustomed to the uneven pattern of give and take. Hair fell over Saitou's upper back, his own hair and Okita's, which was something he would tangle his fingers in soon enough, hair he knew perhaps better than his own. It was a dangerous business, letting his back be kissed this way, by a man he knew so well, and both took pleasure also in the danger of it. Okita Souji had been a child prodigy and there was one rebellion in his life that could thrill him; this was it. With the same agile grace they used in wielding a sword, Okita's hands kneaded the muscle or simply touched the skin of Saitou's back, while he kissed the same places as ever on Saitou's neck. Saitou positioned his hands on the fronts of his own thighs and waited, this period of thoughtfulness and recumbence to end nearly as soon as it had begun. The both of them were determined or stubborn enough, again in their own separate ways, to enjoy it while it lasted. Saitou let his head fall to one side, not a challenging angle but a restful one, and Okita buried his lips at that junction of taught muscle. He did not bite, just breathed against the skin, a prickling heat that made banked embers spark to fire, and Okita's hands tightened, tightened, against Saitou's flesh.
Saitou flipped them, then, a wild, sudden motion that spoke of his speed in battle, and was above the smaller man on the tatami before any sound was made to warn of his rapid movement. There was only so much that Saitou Hajime could take in such a peaceful manner; there was also only so much that Okita Souji could give in that same way. It worked well, the sudden hunger in the very depths of Saitou's belly, to contrast the gentleness of just moments before.
They kissed both initiated the kiss, it did not matter if one leaned up or the other down mouth searching mouth with desirous force. The backs of Okita's thighs fit well against the tops of Saitou's, this position the second stage of their sex or their love-making or whatever they had come to terms with calling it. Okita's back arched and he pressed himself upwards and Saitou's fingers yes tangled in that fall of thick hair, jerking his head up swiftly but with surprising delicacy, kissing him this time, and kissing him again. At that Okita's eyes fell shut, thick lashes casting shadows over his cheeks, and his breath caught into a gasp in the junction of their mouths. The trembling of his smaller body was like the trembling of a cat, just before it leaped a distance it thought perhaps was too wide, far too wide. Every muscle was pulled taut with the tension or the pleasure of the moment.
"Ah," Okita gasped, the sound escaping from the lock between their lips. It could have drowned a man in intoxication, Saitou thought as slim legs wrapped around his waist, as heels dug into his lower back. Okita was a thousand surprises in the smallest, most bright-eyed of packages, delicate but fierce also, on the battlefield, in bed.
So much of swordplay was a guidebook for this act that Saitou had long ago ceased to keep such careful track of what he employed where. Now: his hands moved down the sides of Okita's thighs even as he kissed him, kissed him, kissed him, left him breathless in the wake of each touch and each kiss. Now: he rocked against him so that their hips pressed together and the sounds Okita made burned between Saitou's ears and behind his ribs. Now: his hands were against Okita's hips and he lifted him, with a gentle urgency, and they were apart, parted. Okita moved, turned over, on his hands and knees with his head tucked against the latticework of his fingers on the tatami, and his hips lifted, waiting for it. Saitou pulled back and with precision undid the top of the small jar that rested by the side of the mat, waiting for this moment. Two long fingers swirled inside it, warmed the cooling substance and then pulled out, slick. They pressed against that ring of muscle just moments afterwards, for Saitou Hajime wasted no time when time need not be wasted. The position, too, of Saitou above the smaller man, the prostrate curve of Okita's back, drove him a little wild, perhaps at the beauty of it, or perhaps at the injustice of who leaned over whom.
Saitou pressed his lips against the back of Okita's hip and moved one finger past the ring of protesting muscles, felt the tension against his mouth fade. Good. His hands were just as used to this by now as they were to pulling his sword from its sheath, both practiced, confident motions. He pulled his finger in and out and pressed it in again, listened to Okita's breaths turn ragged with the movements and felt his heart beat against his ribs against his chest. Good. A second finger joined the first and they stretched the muscle now, readied the smaller man for what they both knew would come.
It was there, then, the smallest of admissions or pleas or even simple, perfect statements "Saitou." and that was the signal. Saitou's hand pulled free and wiped clean moments after and then Okita had turned and Saitou pulled the smaller figure onto his lap, pushed into him at the same time. Backs arched together, bodies pushing away from one another's with the thrust and the pleasure or pain that came with it.
The first thrust. Neither initiated it because both initiated it, Okita pushing himself down and Saitou pushing himself up and once he was deep inside they were still, except for the rise and fall of their chests as they breathed. Here, in this place, Saitou took his longest looks at Okita's face, drank in both his features and his expressions. His brow furrowed as he grew accustomed again to the feeling, his eyes closed, as always. Slowly, Saitou kissed him, coaxed his mouth and also his eyes to open with the kiss. Okita settled his hands on Saitou's shoulders and sighed, relaxation flooding out into his limbs from the pit of his aching belly. It was always this way: a second period of rest, recuperation, recumbence, with Saitou's hands kneading the muscles of Okita's lower back until Okita was once more breathing normally. Always the occasional way Okita labored for breath kept Saitou wary, even here where almost all his defenses had already been dropped.
At last Okita lifted steady hands to brush the black hair out of Saitou's face and Saitou rocked within him, testing, questioning. Okita let out a low, hissing breath, kissing the corner of Saitou's mouth, challenging him with fast breaths and hungry lips. Naturally Saitou did not resist, hands tensing at Okita's hips so that the smaller man began to move, up and down on Saitou's lap. They moved together as they did not by day; their strength as members of the Shin Sen Gumi in separation, their strength as lovers in oneness. Hips bucked at a-rhythms, up to down and down to up, kisses punctuating thrusts. Saitou found Okita's prostate within moments and angled each thrust against it. Okita cried out once into Saitou's mouth, and the sound was swallowed greedily as their pace quickened into something maddening and wild.
As they neared the end, the climax, Saitou bit Okita's lip, a necessity for them both and their shared silence. Tension existed between them as always, a buildup of everything they fought to repress. Okita's gasps of pleasure were delicious and so young, thick and heavy and pleading. In this time Saitou made no verbal promises. All meaning was imparted flesh against flesh, flesh to flesh. When they orgasmed it was quiet and blinding, hidden from the world between their two very different bodies. They said no names and savored no conventional lovers' sweetness, the silence an important part of it. Saitou with his lips buried in Okita's bangs, Okita with his face hidden against Saitou's shoulder, the both of them tensing, releasing, relaxing at last. Always, it was afterwards that they touched, gentle and slow and personal. When Saitou lowered Okita to the tatami and stretched out beside him, when Okita tangled their limbs together, they watched each other and kissed each other and sometimes, they spoke.
"I really feel," Okita whispered then, voice so light and young, sweet upon the ears, "I really feel like I'm dying."